Sweet Grief

Lindsay Zoladz

Wolf in White Van:

A Novel

by John Darnielle

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

$24.00 List Price

From an early age, Sean Phillips, the narrator of John Darnielle’s novel Wolf in White Van, has counted himself among a particular sect of “young men who need to escape.” Alone in his backyard in Southern California in the early ’80s, he pretended he was Conan the Barbarian; when he got a little older, he replied to small-print ads in the backs of magazines that said things like “Catalog of Rare and Unknown Swords from Around the World, Send Three Dollars and Two International Reply Coupons.” He spent countless hours—days, maybe weeks—scouring the sci-fi and fantasy sections of bookstores, seeking out the pulpiest, most garish covers. When he was a teenager, he collected a stack of D-list horror VHS tapes with names like Gor and Krull, and he listened to abrasive music at volumes loud enough to drown out the squawk of uncomprehending adults. At his most self-aware, he saw his life governed by a sad paradox: The fact that he knew he was a recognizable type did not make him feel any less alone.

As the founding member of the prolific, fiercely beloved band the Mountain Goats, Darnielle is something of an expert regarding the plight of outcasts. His songs employ the narrative strategies of short stories—one album, 2002’s Tallahassee, was composed of songs describing an alcoholic couple who moved to the titular city in an attempt to quit drinking—and many of his protagonists are star-crossed kids: A teenage death-metal duo break up when one member is sent to boarding school; an injured high-school football star does federal time after selling acid to an undercover cop; a boy is

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